


Firestarter

by nickofhearts



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Reality, Casually Promiscuous Noctis, Happy Birthday Noctis!!, Keith is an honorary Noctii, M/M, Noctis sleeps his way through the Voltron crew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-15 07:36:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11801448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickofhearts/pseuds/nickofhearts
Summary: Noctis falls through realities. Keith issupremelyunimpressed.





	1. here's to all the people who've been trying to keep me down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamingcicadas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingcicadas/gifts).



> This is wholly self-indulgent and probably somewhat OOC, but I just wanted to write Noctis having some happy fun times in another universe for his birthday...
> 
> (I might have made him too cool?? WHATEVER, IT'S HIS BIRTHDAY, LET HIM BE AMAZING!!!)

Noctis had finally reached the Crystal—the Crystal that was supposed to be the answer to all their prayers, that was said to return light to the world. He held a trembling hand out to it, thinking of all that he had sacrificed to finally stand before its radiance: Luna, her white dress stained red with blood; Altissia, drowned under Leviathan's might; his _friends,_ who fought for him still, and he had no way of knowing whether they would survive the night.

He startled when the light started pulling him _in,_ his feet scrambling on the ground as he was dragged forwards, and then fucking _Ardyn_ finally showed his face to say _his_ piece.

" _No,_ " Noctis snarled, pulling _back._ He was done being used, nothing but a pawn in everyone else's games. He felt the ring on his finger burn against his skin as if in reproach, but what was a little pain after all that he'd been made to suffer? This was less than _nothing._

Noctis _screamed,_ bracing himself against the Crystal's surface as he yanked _backwards_ with all the power that was within him, straining against the pressure of the force being exerted on him, and there was abruptly the sound of something cracking open—

He was falling, images and voices rushing past him, but Noctis couldn't hold onto any of it.

-

He woke up to darkness.

"Hello?" someone was asking him with a strange accent as they shook him on the shoulder, unlike any Noctis had ever heard before. "Keith? I know the engine crystal's pretty, but you shouldn't be sleeping here—"

" _Oh,_ " they said when Noctis blinked his eyes open at them. "You're not Keith."

Noctis fell back into unconsciousness.

-

He woke up again, and this time he was—floating in a weird green liquid? Noctis panicked, kicking out frantically, panicking _more_ when something started beeping, louder and louder like an _alarm._ The—whatever he was in—opened, dumping him out of it, and Noctis had never been so grateful to suck in lungfuls of crisp clean air.

When he'd regained enough of his senses that he wasn't just hacking up his organs, Noctis realized he was being stared at by a whole group of unfamiliar people.

"W-who are you?"

The woman with a crown the likes of which Noctis had never seen before _either_ stepped forward with a little curtsy. "I am Princess Allura of Altea, and these are the Paladins of Voltron—" gesturing to her entourage.

"I've never heard of Altea?" Noctis asked. "Or Voltron?"

Allura seemed at a loss, but another of her companions stepped up—the one that had tried to shake Noctis awake earlier?

"Ah, Princess. I believe he's not actually from this reality, but a cousin of it, perhaps? As far as I could determine, he fell out of the—" He shrugged. "Well, out of the engine crystal." He turned to address Noctis directly. "I do apologize for the abrupt awakening, I thought you were Keith here," pointing both hands at the ‘Paladin?' in red. "You bear a rather striking resemblance."

Noctis gave him a puzzled look.

"Oh! I'm Coran," the man introduced himself sheepishly. "Also of Altea, though the Princess and I are the last—" He was interrupted by soft squeaks—mice? appearing on the Princess' shoulders, peeking out from where they'd been nestled in her hair. "Excuse me, of course. And these mice as well."

"I'm sorry," Noctis replied automatically. He swallowed the lump in his own throat at Coran's easy declaration of something that must've been the end result of a _horrific_ experience, perhaps even worse than Noctis' own.

"I'm Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum." He paused, then figured what the hell. It was _true,_ wasn't it? Ardyn had made certain of that. "Also the last of my line."

-

Two weeks later saw Noctis in the cockpit of the Red Lion with its pilot— _Keith_ —who Coran had mistaken him for at first glance. It _was_ true, they shared a fairly similar build and similar features, though Noctis' eyes were a clear lake blue to the slate-grey of Keith's. Keith, Noctis had learned, was also somewhat _prickly,_ though he supposed many might've said the same of him once upon a time.

"So a prince, huh?" Keith asked as he fiddled with the Lion's controls.

Noctis shrugged. "For being in the modern age, we were still a remarkably feudal society." He slid a hand over the edge of the sleek panel where the controls were being projected. It was a _far_ cry from anything they'd had in Eos, that was for sure. Cindy probably would've killed to get a look beneath the hood of a system like this. "Do you really just call her 'Red Lion'? A beauty like this deserves an equally fitting name."

Keith shot him a glower. "I call her— _it_ —'Red.' They're not _actual_ lions, you know."

"She purred when she saw me, didn't you girl?" Noctis patted the back of the seat like he'd pet a chocobo, imagining the mane a magnificent creature like her might have. "She's definitely sentient."

"How do you even know it's a _'she.'_ Red could be male." Keith grumbled.

" _Intuition,_ " Noctis told him with a smirk. He tapped the side of his nose. "Hmmm, let's see. How about 'Ares'? God of war and purveyor of the battlefield. I bet you're something to see in the fire of battle, huh Ares?"

 _Ares_ rumbled a loud purr in response, making the whole cockpit shake.

"Ares is a _male_ god," Keith groused, breaking off into a yelp when Ares suddenly did a barrel roll mid-air, almost sending them both flying.

Noctis laughed, patting the seatback again. "Good girl, Ares. Show Keith who's boss." He leaned an elbow against Keith's shoulder, watching him work the controls and take them in a smooth path towards the horizon, where the strangely coloured sun was setting on the planet where they were currently parked. It was beautiful, and Noctis felt a pang in his chest at the thought of how Prompto would've loved to get a shot of it.

He shook his head to clear it. He had no idea _how_ to get back to Eos, and wasn't even sure he wanted to. What he had right now was a new _universe_ full of discoveries to be made, and Noctis was going to experience as much of it as he could.

He nudged Keith on the arm. "When do _I_ get a go?"

Keith snorted. "How about North of _never?_ "

Ares did another sudden barrel roll, though they were both prepared for it this time.

"See?" Noctis grinned. "Ares wants me on the controls, don't you girl?" and got a gentle purr in response.

" _Fine,_ " Keith hissed, vacating the seat with a sullen jerk of his arms. He gestured for Noctis to take it. "Don't crash."

Noctis huffed. "As _if._ " The controls were all in a language he'd never seen before, but that didn't seem to matter. It was as if Ares responded to his _thoughts_ rather than his motions, and Noctis felt at one with her like he felt at one with the weapons of his Armiger—an _extension_ of his self. "I wonder—" Noctis mused, and a glowing panel lit up suddenly beside him, a hidden section extending and flashing red lights.

"Huh," Keith said. He handed Noctis his—weapon? It wasn't like any weapon Noctis had ever handled, but he took it and inserted it into the panel that Ares had opened up for him.

"Here goes nothing!" Noctis shouted, and imagined tossing one of his swords and _warping._

Ares flicked her tail and threw forward a blade of light, warping them quickly and in rapid succession, flickering them through space like distance was merely a theoretical function that had no meaning. Noctis whooped with exhilaration, cackling a loud laugh, though Keith appeared far less pleased, his grip white-knuckled on the back of Noctis' seat.

"Take us _down,_ " he grit out, looking like he was about to be sick.

"Alright, alright," Noctis sighed. He patted the smooth silver metal of Ares' paneling. "Next time, girl, we're gonna come out here, just you and me, and see what you're _really_ capable of."

"Hgrkk," Keith muttered from the back.

-

Noctis yawned, stretching his arms out over his head as he headed down to the kitchens for a midnight snack. It seemed there was a time difference between Eos and—space? Or at least between Noctis' regular schedule and the schedule the crew of the castleship appeared to keep.

He frowned as he was met with strange symbols on the food processor instead of a menu.

"Can I just have some ramen," Noctis asked plaintively.

He wasn't expecting it to _work,_ but the machine gurgled forth some slop that Noctis quickly caught in a bowl.

"Huh," he said, eyeing it speculatively. It didn't _look_ very appetizing, but it smelled—strange. Really strange. Noctis scooped a spoonful of it up and cautiously stuck his tongue out to taste. It wasn't _quite_ like ramen, but it wasn't quite not either. It was like someone had pulled out his memory of all the different kinds of ramen he'd ever had and jammed them together in a single concoction.

"Not...bad?" Noctis concluded. He cast a glance at the food processor. "Thank you."

Ignis had always taught him to be polite, after all.

-

He was on his way back to his room when he noticed someone standing on the bridge of the ship, looking out into the wide expanses beyond. It was a breathtaking sight, all the more so for the lone Paladin standing before it, appearing lost in his thoughts.

"Shiro...?" Noctis asked tentatively.

He hadn't officially met the Black Paladin, who'd been recovering from some lingering injuries, and then one thing or another had kept their paths from crossing—Noctis was constantly getting dragged off by Coran, who was _supremely_ intrigued by how Noctis could interact with the castleship as if he was Altean, and then Pidge, who wanted to hook him up to scanners to parse his genetic makeup. "I'm not an alien!" Noctis had protested, which landed on deaf ears. And _then_ there was Keith, who seemed beyond offended that Noctis had somehow destroyed his record in the training program without even breaking a sweat and kept demanding they spar...Noctis had never had such a tough time sneaking off for naps. He assumed Shiro had been informed of his presence on the ship like Noctis had been informed of _his,_ or this was about to get really awkward.

" _Oh,_ " Shiro said, then gave him a warm smile. He waved Noctis over.

That was...promising? Shiro seemed imposing at a distance, between the robot arm and the scar across his face that reminded Noctis of Gladio and the plethora of scars _he_ sported, and Noctis found himself relieved that he and his Shield had at least had a chance to bury the hatchet before everything had gone down.

Noctis pushed the thoughts away and headed over to stand next to Shiro, gazing out at the same view. It was oddly companionable.

Which was why Noctis was completely taken off guard when he was suddenly being _kissed,_ Shiro's warm human hand coming up to cup his face, thumb stroking over a cheek. Noctis melted into it, wondering if he'd fallen back asleep at some point and was now _dreaming,_ though it felt real enough. He was panting when they broke apart.

"Your room?" Noctis asked, voice coming out throaty.

Shiro gave him a wry smile. "It's _always_ my room, isn't it?"

Noctis was just wondering what _that_ meant when there was a screech from the hallway. He turned around to see Keith standing there, shoulders hunched forward and shaking, face a mask of absolute _fury._

"You—!!!"

"Me?" Noctis asked, pointing a finger at himself.

Keith stalked over and jabbed _his_ fingers into Noctis' chest with enough force that Noctis was sure there were going to be bruises. "You steal my Lion, my training records, _and my Shiro?!?_ "

" _Ohhh,_ " Noctis realized with a snap of his fingers. " _That's_ why he kissed me."

Keith shrieked incoherently again, and Noctis was suddenly sure that if his doppelganger also had the ability to manifest swords from thin air, he'd have a glowing Armiger aiming for his throat at this very moment.

"Um, am I missing something?" Shiro broke in. "Why are there two of you, Keith?"

Keith's outraged shout of, "That's not me!" and Noct's own, "I'm not Keith," were in discordant unison as Shiro just stared at the both them in further incomprehension.

Shiro suddenly tugged them both against him, arms tight around their backs—Keith sputtered angrily into his neck and Noctis also tensed up at the abrupt closeness before relaxing again. It was kind of...nice? He settled into the hug, and even Keith eventually calmed down, little motions like he was reluctantly snuggling against Shiro.

"There, now that you're not foaming at the mouth..." Shiro let them both go. "Someone care to explain to me what's going on?"

Keith only glared at Noctis, leaving him to provide the explanation.

"I'm from an alternate reality?" Noctis shrugged. "Coran thinks I'm the Keith equivalent in Eos, which means I really traded down here." He threw Shiro a wink. "I'm a _prince_ where I'm from."

Keith was gnashing his teeth again, looking like he was about to lunge for Noctis if Shiro hadn't caught him in another embrace.

"Interesting..." Shiro responded. He rubbed at his eyes with his free hand and yawned. "Let's...maybe revisit this in the morning? When we're _all_ rested and rational-minded?" Smartly, he didn't let go of the paladin he still had caught in his other arm. "Keith?"

"Come near Shiro again, and I'll _crush_ you, _prince._ "

Noctis shrugged. "My door's open if you ever wanna—" he waggled his eyebrows at Shiro—"finish where we left off."

Shiro had to throw Keith over a shoulder and carry him down the hallways as he screamed obscenities back at Noctis.

Noctis waved at him cheerily in response.

-

" _Arghhh,_ " Keith snarled, taking a seat next to Noctis in the castleship's common area. "Why the quiznak can't I stay _away_ from you?"

Noctis shrugged, crunching down on the space equivalent of an apple, which was purple-skinned and neon green on the inside, but tasted a lot better than the ones found on Eos. It was deliciously sweet and crisp, like biting into sugarcane, and Noctis may have developed somewhat of an addiction to them that the ship's food processor had been happy to cater to. This was his fifth one of the day, and they were just heading into early evening, if Noctis was reading the clock on the wall correctly. "Coran said something about the attraction of like soul frequencies—?"

Keith snatched the remainder of the 'apple' from his hand and took a big enough bite out of it that he destroyed its structural stability, the core snapping between his fingers.

"I _hate_ you," Keith sneered as he tossed it into the bin, except the heat in his eyes as he glared at Noctis seemed to indicate something _else._

Noctis leaned back against the seat with a placidly noncommittal expression. "So you _don't_ want to—"

Keith attacked him before he'd even finished the sentence, throwing his legs over Noctis' lap and grinding their hips together as he caught Noctis' mouth in a messy kiss. It tasted of the sweetness of the apple, tempered by Keith's teeth scraping over his lips, trying to bite his tongue.

Keith pulled back to growl at him: "This is just—" he waved a hand—" _soul frequencies,_ it means nothing—"

Noctis tamped down the urge to roll his eyes and tugged Keith back in for more kisses. "You a closet romantic or something?" he murmured against his doppelganger's lips. "It doesn't _have_ to mean anything."

Keith only groaned in response, since Noctis' hand had found the catches to undo his skin-tight pants and was curling around his cock.

"Hmmm," Noctis mused. They weren't _exactly_ the same, after all.

Keith smirked at him. "Bigger than yours?"

It was Noctis' turn to bite his mouth. "It's not _size_ that matters."

He flipped Keith on his back on the couch and let his weight hold him down, his hand tightening around Keith's cock and making him gasp. It wasn't that Noctis had an excess of experience with fumbling sexual encounters, but he _was_ the prince, and a lot of people had wanted to get their hands on him. Noctis had been happy to allow them the privilege in his rowdier teenage years, when it'd just felt like he'd _combust_ if he didn't have some kind of outlet for the kind of energy that was pent up inside him, humming beneath his skin. He'd—extremely awkwardly—asked Ignis about it, and after some research, Ignis had concluded it was something to do with the magic of the Crystal, and perhaps why Regis had spread his own magic through the entirety of the Kingsglaive.

In any case, it'd given Noctis the experience now to know how to twist his hand on Keith's cock and suck lingering kisses against his throat, biting at the sensitized skin as he squeezed with his hand again, and Keith abruptly came with a low moan, hands clenched on Noctis' shoulders.

Noctis brought his fingers to his mouth and licked at them curiously, wondering if this tasted—not the same, then.

" _Quiznak,_ " Keith muttered. "You do this often?"

"Not _often,_ but yeah? Sometimes I just need to get it out." Noctis held up a hand and called _fire_ to it, lighting up both their faces with the glow of the flames.

"Show-off," Keith muttered, but there wasn't any vitriol in it this time.

Noctis dismissed the flame and settled down against him, grabbing Keith's hand in his and guiding it down to where his own cock was in dire need of some attention.

Keith, somewhat surprisingly, obliged without complaint.

-

A few days later, the Paladins had their first space battle since Noctis had arrived in their midst. Everyone raced to their Lions, and Noctis was left on the bridge with Allura and Coran watching their progress. It was almost like a video game, with the way the screen showed enemy ships exploding as the Voltron Lions tore through them, crunching them in their jaws or pawing them aside to smash against each other, except Noctis knew it was as real as anything else in this universe.

"Huh?" Noctis blinked when a familiar little fox spirit appeared in his peripheral vision. "Carbuncle?"

Allura and Coran were completely engrossed in the battle, calling out directions or providing key cover fire, and Noctis shrugged, deciding this was a mystery meant for him to unravel on his own. He followed the flickering trail Carbuncle left him, moving through hallways he hadn't yet explored, until he was in a large hanger-like area, where they must usually keep the Lions—

"Oh _shit,_ " Noctis breathed. "That you, Carby?"

He held out a hand to the sleek _white_ Lion that greeted him with a trilling purr, lowering its head and opening its jaw; invitation for Noctis to climb into its cockpit if ever he'd seen one.

"Did you follow me all the way out here?" Noctis asked with a laugh. 

A prompt popped up before him. _I'm always with you, Noctis,_ followed by three festive maraca emojis.

Noctis laughed. "Should we show them what _we_ can do?"

Carbuncle's answer was to take a giant leap forwards, propelling them through the hanger doors and into the infinite boundaries of space.

-

"What the _quiznak?!_ " Noctis heard one of the other pilots shout as Carbuncle slammed into an enemy ship with its hind legs, ramming it against several others that'd been clustered too closely.

"Your prince has arrived," Noctis answered with a bow, or rather, Carbuncle inclining its head graciously.

"Not _our_ prince," Keith muttered. "Where'd you even get a _Lion?_ "

Noctis flashed a toothy smile, warping Carbuncle out of the way of several lasers so the Galran ships ended up exploding each other instead. "I can summon _gods,_ o disbelieving one—" Carbuncle dodging and rolling from more enemy ships that tried to surround them, and then knocking them aside playfully with its paws—"this happens to be the form one of them decided to take in this reality."

"Wait, wait, backup," another voice came—Hunk? Noctis remembered—"You can summon _gods?_ " with an appropriately awed intonation that was markedly unlike Keith's usual disdain for Noctis' feats of splendor.

"I _could,_ " Noctis responded, banking sharply to the left to avoid smacking into yet more ships—did the Galrans have nothing better to do than manufacture an endless supply? It was _actually_ starting to feel like a video game again. "I'm not sure what form the rest of them would take in this reality, and uh, I don't think I want to find out unless we're _really_ desperate."

"Do I _want_ to ask?" that was—Lance, the Blue Paladin? Noctis thought. 

"Let's just say one of them attempted to _eat_ me, and also the rest of the world before I beat her into submission," Noctis answered. 

Carbuncle trilled a laugh, bright and shining like silver bells on the wind, and then the horn on its head glowed red and scattered ruby light which exploded on contact with all the surrounding fighter jets.

"Holy _quiznak,_ " Hunk's voice came over the intercom.

Noctis grinned and flicked Carbuncle's tail in affirmation. It felt _good_ to be appreciated, almost like he was fighting with the guys again. 

-

"Uh, what's _that?_ " Lance asked as some weird amalgamation of creatures mashed together in a robotic form suddenly appeared out of the main battleship, heading directly towards them.

"We need to form Voltron," Shiro decided. "Noctis, are you with us?"

"Sure?" Noctis confirmed, not entirely certain of what exactly he was agreeing to.

"Just—fly in formation with us," Shiro directed him, which was simple enough. "If you're synced, it should automatically trigger along with the rest of us, I'll bet."

"What's he even going to _be?_ " Keith snarked derisively. "We've already got enough arms and legs."

"A crown?" Lance put forward, followed by Hunk wondering, "a tail?" and then Pidge breaking in with, "neither of those are practical additions, guys. Maybe Noctis will give us his Armiger, _that'd_ be useful."

Once the transformation was completed, it turned out Carbuncle had become—"Wings?!" Keith spluttered. "We can _already_ fly."

"Don't knock it until you've—seen what it can do," Noctis shrugged.

The fight progressed as per the usual routine, Noctis assumed, and he mostly coasted along watching the interaction of the rest of the group while they maneuvered Voltron together as one to fend off the weird mech thing that alternated between spitting lasers at them and groping out with its many-tentacled...arm things? trying to pull them close and presumably crush them. It reminded Noctis of a mindflayer, personally, and he shuddered at the remembrance of _those_ daemons.

"It's got too many arms!" Lance wailed as they were buffeted back by one just as they'd disabled its brother.

"Hang on," Noctis told him. "I've _got_ this."

He snapped his bayard into place again, and the individual blades of the wings broke off to surround Voltron like a shield—like Noctis' _Armiger_ —he knew, and Noctis bared his teeth in a savage grin anticipating what was to come. " _Activate Armiger,_ " Noctis verbalized for the benefit of the rest of the Paladins, and then Voltron was suddenly faster, more powerful, and more _brutal_ like Noctis when he'd called the Armiger for himself, each blade of the wing glowing with the ghostly form of one of his swords as they crashed one after another into the enemy mech in a raging frenzy, relentless while they carved it into pieces.

"Okay," Hunk said as everyone took in the bits of floating debris that were all that was left of the pseudo-mindflayer. "That was really _really_ cool."

" _Yeah,_ " Noctis answered breathlessly, still thrumming with adrenaline as he slowly came down from the battle high. "Looks like the wings were useful for something after all, eh Keith?"

"Fine, you can stay," Keith muttered, to a resounding round of laughter from everyone else.

-

Noctis ran smack-dab into someone on his way out of the hanger, making the both of them back-pedal with an emphatic 'oof!'

"Oh, it's you," Lance said, as he took in Noctis' non-regulation all-black attire. "Not-Keith." He laughed, offering Noctis his hand. "I should've known. I didn't feel an immediate and all-consuming hatred towards you."

Noctis snickered. "Noct-Keith, even," clicking his tongue and cocking finger-guns at Lance.

"Wha—oh, I get it. Because your name's Noctis?"

Noctis nodded. "Noct's fine." He smiled wistfully, thinking of all the puns Prompto and Gladio had enjoyed making from the nickname. "It's uh, what my friends call me."

"That's cool, yeah," Lance nodded, getting more enthusiastic. "I'm friends with a prince!" He held out a hand for a fist-bump.

Noctis returned the gesture, feeling a sudden bubbling elation. How long had it been since he'd made new friends? He'd been lucky to have Ignis and Gladio, who'd been assigned to stand by his side, but had become irreplaceable to him in ways that had nothing to do with their _official_ positions. Prompto was the only one who'd sought him out on a level where there'd been no obligation involved. "And _I'm_ friends with a defender of the universe," Noctis returned. "That's pretty cool too, I'd say."

Lance beamed at him, puffing out his chest. "That's right, I'm a legendary defender! You _should_ be proud to be my friend, sir prince." 

Noctis laughed his agreement, and the two of them headed back up to the main quarters of the castleship together, bumping shoulders.

-

("Hey Noct!" Lance hailed him when they were sat around the long table for dinner. "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

Noctis shook his head, a trace of a smile tugging at his lips. "Nah, I warped. Why?"

Lance made a kissy face at him, hands on his cheeks. "Because you're an _angel._ "

The rest of the table groaned as Lance prodded them—"Get it? Get it? Because of the _wings,_ " and then he and Noctis broke into uproarious laughter, quickly infecting the rest of the group. Even Allura was smiling at them, Coran raising a finger as he surmised: "Ah! Your earth legends make mention of celestial beings with appendages such as the ones the prince here added to Voltron, is that correct? Well done, Lance, well done, very clever!"

Keith glowered at them both as he stabbed a fork into his plate, gnashing his teeth together loudly enough for it to be _audible._ )


	2. you've placed all your bets and i'm gonna make you fall

"Nice sword," Noctis commented, flicking the glowing blade he'd pulled from Keith's back holster for a looksee from hand to hand. It felt...incomplete, and he turned it around, searching for a catch. _There,_ Noctis thought, and pushed with his magic; the blade responded by elongating into a longer, sleeker form, curving on one side almost like a scimitar. Noctis grinned in satisfaction. It _was_ a nice sword, one that was fit for even a prince, or at least his alternate reality doppelganger.

Noctis looked up to find everyone staring at him.

Even Hunk—with something like a sandwich halfway to his mouth—was staring, his mouth still open, leaves of...some kind of lettuce substitute falling into his lap while he stood motionless.

"You...can't be half-Galra _too!_ " Allura wailed. She looked almost betrayed.

"Uh?" Noctis asked. "It's just a magic sword? Magic swords are kind of my _thing._ " He concentrated, tossing the blade up into the air, and it disappeared with a whisper into his Armiger, the outline fading then reappearing back in his hand when Noctis called it into being again. He nudged it into its knife form and returned it to Keith, whose expression was both completely blank and somehow also conveyed absolute dumbfoundedness.

Noctis shrugged. "When you've traveled the far corners of Eos running through spiky death-traps just for a cool new sword, you've kind of seen it all, yeah?"

"Right..." Pidge agreed, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her eyes gleamed with the air of scientific discovery just waiting on the horizon. "Noct, I need to run more tests."

Noctis blanched, taking a quick few steps back. "I'm...busy. Right, uh, Lance? We have—plans?"

Lance held up his hands. "Nuh uh, no way, Noct. You're my brother in arms and I love you, but you're on your own for this one."

Pidge grinned smugly with the triumph of victory, about to grab Noctis by the arm and drag him off to her laboratory, or rather, _torture chamber,_ when Keith of all people interceded.

" _We_ have plans," he hissed, and yanked Noctis with him down the hallway.

"Thank _Shiva,_ " Noctis muttered, happy to engage in as much sparring as Keith wanted in exchange for not having to sit still for more 'scientific inquiry' as Pidge poked and prodded at him with electrodes, and one extremely memorable time, what _had_ to be basically a shock baton. He was sure he'd be subjected to less torture if he'd been captured by the _Nifs._

Only, they weren't heading in the direction of the...training rooms?

 _Oh,_ Noctis thought, that was even better. It'd been awhile since Keith had jumped him for _these_ purposes, and Noctis was more than happy to oblige.

Keith shoved him through the door to his room and then kicked it shut, turning around to smoothly slam Noctis back against it. He was almost snarling, anger lighting a _fire_ in his eyes as he closed in and growled a kiss into Noctis' mouth. They were so close that Noctis felt warmed by the proximity, Keith pressed against him with bare few layers between them.

He moaned appreciatively, letting Keith have the lead.

Keith's answer was to then trip him onto the bed, shedding his own clothes haphazardly as Noctis shimmied out of his in kind.

-

Noctis expected to be kicked out of the bed immediately after and then into the hallway with the door locked behind him, but Keith was being...oddly cuddly. 

"That trick you did with my sword," he started, then seemed to lose his train of thought. He reached over Noctis to the bedside table where he'd left the sword in question earlier, shifting it into its full form with a flick of his wrist. "You could do it too," sounding almost wondrous. "It's really...just a magic trick?"

Noctis nodded. He held out a hand for one of his other swords, showing Keith how it blazed with flames, then another, frosting over with ice. And the last, when he cut himself and the blood was absorbed by the blade, fading _into_ the metal, and the wound on Noctis' palm also healed in reaction. "Just magic."

"Magic..." Keith murmured, almost awed. He held Noctis' hand in his own, then brought it up to his lips to kiss his palm where the wound had been, eyes fluttering shut prettily.

Noctis hadn't thought to offer it before, but perhaps that had been an oversight. The Paladins were his family here in this new place, weren't they? They'd welcomed him with open arms and shared everything they could with him. It was time for Noctis to return the favour. He turned his hand over and closed it against Keith's palm, brushing his thumb gently over this other self's knuckles. 

"We Lucii have a gift," Noctis told him, "and it's meant to be _shared._ "

Keith gasped at the pulse of magic that went through him, lighting up the pathways of his veins with blue light as Noctis opened up his powers and let them flow through him and into Keith, who Noctis could now feel like a bright shining star in his other senses, the way he'd been able to feel Prompto and Ignis and Gladio, knowing when they were in danger, when they needed him at their sides.

Keith stared at his hand, though the skin was no longer glowing. "What was—"

" _Magic,_ " Noctis told him. 

He fit Keith's sword back into his grip and let it dematerialize for him, showed him how to wish it back into being with the barest flex of his fingers. 

"Just a magic trick," Noctis told him again, and this time when he moved to capture Keith's lips in a kiss, Keith accepted him with no trace of anger or hatred for any part of his being.

-

Keith slammed directly into the wall for the—how many times had it been already?—that afternoon. Noctis had lost count, honestly, flipping idly through a magazine as he oversaw Keith testing out the new abilities Noctis' magic had bequeathed him. Warping...perhaps hadn't been the place to _start,_ but Noctis couldn't remember his own lessons, to know what kinds of mental and/or physical exercises should've led into it. Points to Keith for perseverance, anyways.

Laughing...only a little, Noctis offered Keith his hand up. "Want some help?"

"I don't _need_ help," Keith snarled, pushing _himself_ to his feet. He held his blade ready again, then threw it across the room, warping after it and—straight into the wall. Noctis was learning _all_ sorts of colourful expressions today.

"Suit yourself," he shrugged, returning to his magazine.

Keith growled out something about his mother that Noctis was— _mostly_ sure wasn't true, making Noctis shake his head at him in mock rebuke.

"That's uncalled for," Noctis told him with a pout. "My parents are both dead."

"So...are... _mine,_ " Keith grunted, and Noctis had a bare few seconds to react as Keith's blade went whistling past his ear and then Keith barreled directly into _him,_ knocking him over on his back as they tangled together in an indistinguishable pile of limbs.

"Oof," Noctis muttered belatedly. "You're actually doing pretty well, you know. It was ages before I could even _make_ a warp."

"Hmph," Keith responded with the thunk of his head against Noctis' chest. "I _am_ better than you."

Noctis glared at the mop of black hair that was Keith, then dug his fingers directly into a sore spot on his ribs where Noctis had _watched_ him land wrong earlier and had to be hurting. Expecting retaliation, he phase-dodged before Keith could grapple him with his flailing limbs, only to break off into a laugh when Keith honest-to-Bahamut squeaked as that left him falling face-first into the floor.

"Oh my _Infernian,_ " Noctis gasped between laughs, clutching at his own ribs. " _Your face!_ "

Keith groaned, making threatening gestures in Noctis' direction, but it didn't look like he had the strength to back them up anytime in the _near_ future.

"Alright, alright," Noctis told him, crouching down next to his over-exuberant doppelganger. "I'm going to be the bigger man here—" he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, though Keith wasn't even looking in his direction—"so remember this the next time you're thinking of sucker-punching me, yeah?" 

Noctis settled a hand on Keith's back between his shoulderblades and gathered the magic for a healing spell, letting it wash through the body beneath, mending away its bruises and scrapes.

Keith _melted_ under his touch, moaning like—like he'd just _come,_ and Noctis' eyebrows lifted for a different reason this time.

"Did you just—" Noctis prodded at Keith's shoulder. "Hey, did you just _come?_ That's rude, you know. You _owe_ me an orgasm."

Keith's hand came up in a two-fingered salute.

" _Tch!_ " Noctis crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. "See if I heal you the next time you have an extended make-out session with the _wall._ "

Keith didn't bother to dignify _that_ with a response.

-

("So can _I_ summon gods now?" Keith wondered, slanting a sideways look at Noctis where they were arrayed in a jumble on his bed, sleeping off the burnt of the afternoon's exertions (Keith), and just indulging in a nap because he _could_ (Noctis).

Noctis responded by punching Keith on the shoulder. " _No,_ asshole." He made a face. "If I gave you _all_ my secrets, what'd you keep _me_ around for?"

Keith smirked, sliding his gaze slowly over Noctis' rumpled form. "I can think of a few things."

-

It'd probably been inevitable. They hadn't exactly been careful, or _discreet,_ but neither he nor Keith were expecting Shiro to just _walk into_ Keith's room without so much as a by-your-leave while they were in the midst of _indulging in pleasurable excesses,_ Noctis' hips rolling against Keith's even as everyone's expressions froze with horror, carried forth by his momentum. 

"Hey, Keith—" Shiro stopped and stared.

Keith yelped, lurching forward, whether to grab the blankets to cover himself with or to get away from Noctis, it wasn't clear.

"Uhhhh," Noctis said awkwardly. "I should...go?" He wasn't entirely sure what the etiquette was for being discovered _in flagrante delicto_ by someone's sometimes...boyfriend (?). Keith himself hadn't seemed to know clearly what his relationship status with Shiro was when Noctis had asked either. "Just...don't, _you,_ with him," Keith had said with a wave of his hand and a pointed glare, which was lacking doubly in eloquence and also clarity, but which Noctis had respected by not climbing Shiro like a tree, more's the pity.

Shiro's eyes wandered over the both of them. "No, um, stay." He made something of an aborted gesture, dropping his hand back to his side quickly and looking awkward.

It was Keith and Noctis' turn to stare, twin gazes snapping to him.

Noctis was the first to find his voice. "Wow, Shiro. _Kinky._ "

Shiro dragged a palm over his face, bashful...or upset? Noctis couldn't tell. "You guys look like you're having a good time. I didn't mean to intrude." 

" _Shiro—_ "

Shiro sighed and covered his face again. "I don't mind, Keith. I, uh, _really_ don't mind, okay?"

Keith appeared thunderstruck, unmoving with his hands still gripping the coverlet, so Noctis determined it was up to _him_ to take the reins on this one if they were going to get anywhere.

"You wanna, come over here, Shiro?" he asked the Black Paladin with his best come hither expression.

Shiro stepped the rest of the way into the room and made his way around the bed somewhat jerkily, as if his body was acting on auto-pilot, Shiro not responsible or fully aware of the movements of his limbs. Noctis grabbed him as soon as he was close enough, sliding his mouth against Shiro's in a messy kiss, making it as loud and filthy as possible.

" _What!_ " Keith squeaked, his voice filled with outrage as he was finally spurred into action.

Noctis pulled back to smirk at him, raising one eyebrow in a _challenge._

Keith _growled,_ surging up to push Noctis away with a hard shove to the chest. He took Noctis' place kissing Shiro, the two of them fitting together with practiced familiarity, Shiro reaching out automatically to curl his hand in Keith's hair, gentling the kiss from the sharpness with which Keith seemed to approach _all_ things.

Noctis rested a hand against his face and watched, intrigued.

It seemed Shiro was the Keith whisperer, which worked for Noctis. While Shiro had him distracted, Noctis fit himself against Keith's back again, sliding his hands on Keith's hips and nuzzling into the nape of his neck. Keith tensed up reflexively, then relaxed as Shiro soothed him with a gentle murmuring Noctis couldn't quite make out. He let Shiro smooth over Keith's rough edges as he pressed slow kisses to Keith's spine, to the tiny speckling of freckles on his upper back.

"You should, er, continue as you were," Shiro said suddenly. He peeked around Keith to lock gazes with Noctis. "Before I interrupted, I mean—"

 _Oh,_ Noctis thought, grinning. He nipped a gentle bite into the back of Keith's neck, then nudged a knee against Keith's legs to shift them further apart, grinding against him lazily before moving to sink his cock into tight wet heat again. Keith made an incoherent noise at the motion, but didn't quite relax into it, because he enjoyed being _difficult_ —

Noctis, remembering how Keith had responded to his magic earlier, crafted a carefully controlled healing spell and let it spread slowly from his hands and into Keith, _feeling_ the tension leave his muscles until Keith was melted against him, almost _purring._

"Handy," Shiro told him with a chuckle. "Your magic really _is_ all-purpose, isn't it?"

"It's not a _recommended_ usage in the Kingsglaive handbooks—uh, that was our, something like a private mercenary force dedicated to the crown and sharing in the king's magic?—but I've picked up a trick or two here and there." Noctis winked at him. "Really though, I think Keith's particularly sensitive to _me_ because of our, y'know, _soul connection._ " Noctis shook his head ruefully. "I've never had anyone else come just because I tossed a healing spell in their direction." 

Noctis snickered, imagining how _that_ would've made his quest to Altissia all the more interesting. It _almost_ covered the pang that echoed through his heart even now at the thought of all the events that had unfolded in the City on the Sea.

Noctis pushed the maudlin remembrances away. There was nothing he could change about the past, and the present was so much more exciting, filled with new delights on a daily basis. He tightened his grip on Keith's hips, holding him in place as he pulled back and pushed in again, making Keith whine; Noctis would bet his eyelashes were fluttering in that pretty way they had when Keith struggled to keep his eyes open while also obviously wanting nothing more than to succumb to the pleasure. 

Keith hands came up, reaching out to Shiro, and Shiro clasped their fingers together tenderly.

"I bet he could take us both," Noctis murmured against Keith's ear, though the words were for Shiro.

Keith gasped, breaking off into a moan as Noctis changed the angle, pulling Keith tighter against him so he could really _feel_ it, his whole body shuddering with sensation. 

"Keith?" Shiro asked, a smile playing over his lips.

" _Nnnnghh!_ "

"Next time," Noctis promised him with a kiss to the cheek. "We'll _really_ work you up first, so you'll have nothing to complain about—maybe you'll even _beg_ Shiro for his cock." Noctis reached around to brush fingertips delicately over Keith's own cock, Keith gasping again and trying to arch his back, but he had no room to maneuver, pressed as he was against Noctis.

Noctis drew back and Shiro unclasped one of his hands from Keith to close it around his cock instead, strained sounds issuing from Keith like he was biting his lip.

"Go ahead," Noctis whispered into his ear. " _Shiro_ wants to watch you come."

Keith let out a strangled cry, as if the _thought_ of it was enough. He came almost immediately into Shiro's grip, shaking with the aftershocks while Noctis closed his eyes and took his own pleasure, squeezing Keith's hips as he built up the rhythm before releasing inside him with a pleasantly drawn out sigh.

"Do you need—" Noctis asked Shiro, but it seemed Shiro had taken care of matters himself, if the evidence of the mess on Keith's chest was any indication.

Shiro was quite _cute,_ cheeks faintly red with a blush.

-

"Ugh," Keith mumbled into Noctis' neck. "I hate you _both._ " His leg kicked out, hitting, presumably, Shiro, since Noctis didn't feel the pain of Keith's foot connecting with any part of his own anatomy. 

"You're outnumbered," Shiro replied, "so I'd watch those toes, buddy."

"I could _take_ you both," Keith grumbled, though he settled down again.

Noctis sniggered, snuggling closer into the puppypile. "We'll see about _that—_ " 

" _Quiznak_ take you!" Keith shouted, flailing wildly and almost throwing, presumably, Shiro again, off the bed, if the low grunt and then Shiro flopping essentially on top of the both of them to pin Keith down was anything to go by. "That's not what I meant!" Keith continued protesting, squirming until Shiro quelled his ire with kisses, and Noctis drifted back off to sleep smiling a quiet smile.

The Keith Whisperer, _indeed._ )


	3. got your fingers in my collar trying to turn me around

The first sign of weirdness was Allura's hair being slightly mussed at breakfast one morning, not _every_ strand exactly in line with the next. It was early enough that the sun wouldn't have risen yet if they'd still been on Earth, sure—Lance thought longingly of his home planet at least once a day—and the rest of them looked like dirt that wasn't fit to be on the bottom of Allura's dainty shoes, but Allura was _always_ perfect.

Lance had never seen her looking less than pristine before, even when she'd first stepped out of the castleship's restoration chamber after a ten thousand year sleep and captured Lance's heart _forever._

He coughed, reminding himself not to get off track, even though Allura's hair was beautiful like moonlit snows, her eyes glimmering sapphires, her skin burnt umber—

 _No,_ Lance chided himself again, the point was that something was _definitely_ up.

-

"Psst, psst!" Lance whispered, waving Keith over on his way down the hall. It was a pain, but these were _desperate times,_ and Lance was going to have to stoop to even working in alliance with his mortal enemy. "Have you noticed anything weird about not-you?"

Keith gave him a look yet again like he was considering whether Lance had been dropped on his head as a child. " _Everything_ about him is weird."

Lance clapped a palm to his forehead in _utmost_ distress. "No! I meant, _specifically._ Has he done anything recently that's weirder than the usual—" Lance waved his hands spastically—" _stuff_ he does."

Keith stared. "You mean like summon fire to his hands? Or magic a Lion from thin air. Or jump through space. Or that thing he does with his swords—"

"I _get_ your _point,_ Keith," Lance gritted out through his teeth. "But—you know what? Nevermind. Just forget it. You're useless!"

Keith strode away shaking his head like he _still_ thought Lance was the brain-damaged one, the nerve!!

Lance plastered himself against the wall again, resuming his stake-out position. He was concentrating _so_ hard on the newly initiated white? Platinum? Silver? Paladin's door that he didn't hear footsteps come up behind him, and thus jumped about twenty feet in the air when a hand landed on his shoulder.

"Oh _my_ god!" Lance shrieked, clutching at his chest as he felt his heart-rate slowly drop back down to normal.

"Uh, were you looking for me—?" Noctis asked him with a hesitant expression like he wasn't quite sure he wanted to be asking the question.

Lance regrouped quickly, straightening up like he _wasn't_ currently in the middle of anything less than completely above-board. This was a _war,_ and in a war, plans changed with the direction of the wind, adapting at a moment's notice by necessity. This was fine; in fact, this was better than Lance's original plan! He'd just stick to Noctis' side like glue until he got to the _bottom_ of the mystery.

"Just wondering if you wanted to get some dinner, good buddy, good pal—" Lance swung an arm over the prince's shoulders and steered him towards the cafeteria.

"Isn't it a little early for—"

Lance shook his head sadly, pulling Noctis with him down the hallway. "It's _never_ too early for dinner, Noct, have you been living under a rock?"

Noctis let himself be tugged along, accepting it with the same kind of nonchalance he approached most everything in the castleship with; he definitely wasn't normal, and Lance was 99.9999% sure it wasn't because he was a prince. Didn't princes have like, _servants_ and quiznak? Allura had Coran, but Noctis seemed perfectly fine doing even menial tasks like helping out with the washing up.

Since it actually _was_ too early for dinner, Hunk hadn't prepared anything yet and they had to make do with two bowls of goop.

Lance ignored his bowl and focused his attention on Noctis instead, staring at him intently while he ate—like he was actually _enjoying_ the mystery slop they'd been doled out by the food processor, remaining seemingly unperturbed by both that and Lance's scrutiny, and _also_ didn't do anything strange _the entire time._

Lance threw up his arms in aggravation when he got back to his own room. The day had been a total bust, but there was always— _tomorrow!_

-

"Are you stalking Noctis?" Pidge asked him as Lance crept—surreptitiously, like an _assassin_ —through the hallways in search of his target. He most definitely didn't scream like a child and almost throw himself into the wall in an attempt to duck out of sight.

Pidge ignored his antics with the ease of long practice. "I've run all the tests I could think of on him, but he's—mostly human? I think his magic throws the instruments off slightly."

"I'm not worried about his being _human—_ " Lance frowned, suddenly concerned. "Should I be? He can make Keith's sword transform, and didn't Shiro say only Galra can do that? Oh quiznak, Pidge, what if he's a spy?! What if he's just _waiting_ to murder us all in our beds?? What if—"

Pidge grabbed him by the collar and yanked him down. "Lance, calm down. He's not a spy."

"How do you _know—_ " 

"I put a tracker on him," Pidge beamed at him. "Noctis hasn't left the castleship or the company of at least one of us since he got here."

Lance stared at her with his mouth open. 

"What?" Pidge asked, looking shifty. She let him go and dusted her hands off. "I thought caution was advisable after what happened the last time."

"No, that's—" _terrifying,_ Lance thought. "Really smart of you, Pidge. Keep up the good work!"

Pidge rolled her eyes. "Thanks, _Lance._ You keep on...with whatever you're doing too."

"Ha. ha. ha." 

Lance scurried down the halls, stopping cold suddenly as the thought hit him that Pidge might have put trackers on _all_ of them. Did she know how long he spent in the shower every morning? Or that he sometimes took the long entirely unnecessary scenic route to breakfast, hoping to catch Allura on her way and _casually_ walk in with her? No, that was insane, this whole Noctis mystery was driving him over the crazy bend. Lance resumed his quick pace towards the training rooms, where he knew Noctis and Keith usually spent their afternoons practicing, _because they were both abnormal._

Lance _did_ scream when he turned a corner and ran into someone—really soft.

"Lance!" Allura's cheeks were warmly flushed, almost _glowing,_ and Lance spent maybe half a minute just thinking about how _pretty_ she was—"Lance?"

"Sorry! I didn't mean to—I wasn't looking—"

"No harm done," Allura told him, even going so far as to pat Lance with the tips of her fingers on his shoulder, and Lance was _never_ going to wash this shirt again, wait no, that was disgusting; he was just going to treasure this memory and think about it every night, and—no that was _creepy,_ he wasn't going to do that. He was going to be totally normal and not a _weirdo_ like certain other people on this castleship—

Wait, he was alone again. Lance sighed and despondently trekked the rest of the way to the training rooms, where Keith was facing off against a dummy alone. 

_Quiznak!_ He must've missed Noctis while he'd been lost in his thoughts.

It was only much much later that Lance thought to wonder what _Allura_ had been doing down that corridor.

-

" _Ugh,_ Hunk!" Lance dropped his head on his best friend's shoulder. "It's been two weeks and I _still_ haven't figured out what Noct's deal is! I know _something's_ going on, but Keith won't help me, and Pidge doesn't think it's an issue, or at least it's something beneath her notice, and—"

"Um yeah?" Hunk chewed some kind of finger food noisily before replying. "Noctis is totally courting Allura, didn't you know? It's kind of cute."

" _W-w-w-what?!_ " Lance felt his heart cracking in two and smashing onto the floor.

"—and I think he's also got somethin' going on with Keith and Shiro? But it seems kind of complicated—"

Lance had stopped listening. He looked over at the bridge where Allura was _giggling,_ putting her hands around Noctis' waist and showing him how the controls worked, Noctis' magic interacting with all the machinery of the castleship like he himself was Altean, how had Lance _missed_ this? His mouth dropped open and he heard a loud buzzing in his ears as the whole of his vision narrowed down to where Allura was now _holding Noctis' hand,_ letting him maneuver the ship into a slow turn, the stars swirling around them like something out of a _fairy tale_ as the ship did a full rotation and then glided leisurely back onto course.

Noctis even—were those? Altean markings? drawn on his face??

Lance stood up, the plate he'd had on his lap saved in the nick of time from upending onto the floor by Hunk, who tittered at him for almost wasting _food,_ but Lance was beyond noticing such insignificant goings-ons.

-

" _I hate him!!!_ " Lance screamed when he'd exited into the hallway and time had abruptly resumed its normal course like a wave crashing over him. He kicked a foot into the wall, _hard,_ then cursed for a full minute in his blessed mother-tongue when that only hurt his foot, and not Noctis, _the princess-stealer._

Keith appeared out of nowhere to snort at him. "Join the quiznaking _club._ "

-

("You!!!" Lance shouted as he stormed into Pidge's workspace. He pointed a finger at her in accusation. "How could you _know_ and not tell me?!?"

"Know...?" Pidge asked, not even turning away from her monitor.

"About Noct! And Allura! And—!!"

"Oh," Pidge rolled her shoulders, disinterested. "That he's been sleeping his way through the inhabitants of this ship? It's probably to do with his magically enhanced metabolic rate. He seems to have an abundance of excess energy that he needs to work off somehow. I guess he used to spend most of his time fighting? But we don't actually see battle that often, and the majority of it's in our Lions, not hand-to-hand combat."

"How do you—" 

Pidge blinked at him like Lance's intelligence level was so far beneath hers that it wasn't even something worth mentioning. "I'm surprised he hasn't propositioned you too, ah—he probably did and you didn't notice."

Lance's face flashed through several configurations in quick succession, but he just couldn't compute.

He thought of Noctis agreeing to have dinner with him, just the two of them though it'd been at an odd hour of the day, then walking with Lance back to his room and—had he looked disappointed when Lance hadn't invited him in? No, _No!_ Lance turned on his heel and marched out of the lab before his brain melted out of his ears from the discoveries that were being heaped upon it.

-

"Have _you_ entered into sexual congress with the prince too, Hunk?!" Lance wailed at him, clinging onto Hunk's torso for dear sanity. He'd run into Coran on his way back, and—somehow—Lance couldn't remember the details exactly, but he'd come away from the conversation with the horrifying knowledge that it was _customary_ for stewards to _assess_ the suitability of paramours to the crown, and that the process included _bedding them,_ and—Lance blanched, trying to remove the whole exchange forcibly from his brainbanks.

Hunk shrugged, and Lance felt cold relief wash through him, until—"Yeah, dude's _hot._ ")


	4. Epilogue

"Have you shtupped _everyone_ on this ship?" Keith asked him incredulously after a training session one afternoon.

Noctis was lying on the ground deliberating between trying to tempt Keith into a quick bump and grind, taking a nap right there, or heading to the kitchens for a snack. "Shtupp..."

"It means—"

"No, I got it." Noctis snickered. "It's _adorable._ "

Keith snarled, moving to kick the appendage that was closest to him, but not before Noctis quickly phased out of the way, just far enough to be out of range of Keith's toes digging viciously into his shin.

"What, you jealous?"

" _No,_ Lance has just been screaming about it. I think you've broken his brain."

Noctis shrugged peaceably. "Since you guys don't have fishing in space, sex, food, and napping are the only joys left to me in life."

"Wait, if we had _fishing,_ that'd be number one?"

"Uh, duh?"

"You're—"

"Handsome? Irresistible? Absolutely ravishing?"

"—evidently well-read in romance novels."

Noctis snorted. "My Shield used to leave them lying all over the place. That, and playboy magazines. Trust me, when you're sharing close quarters with three other guys and most of your days are spent running from and/or into squadrons of robot assassins, jerking off becomes a luxury and not a right."

"...and then you come out with something like that."

"Hmmm?" Noctis rolled over to perch on his elbows and peer at where Keith had also given in to the inevitable and spread himself out on the ground.

"Nothing," Keith muttered. He shoved Noctis over suddenly, one hand groping at his pants until he'd undone them and gotten his hand around Noctis' cock. "Since it's such a _luxury,_ here, the orgasm I owe you."

Noctis relaxed into it, closing his eyes and moving his hips with the motions of Keith's hand, Keith who was being unusually gentle, drawing out the pleasure slowly instead of racing for the finish line as was his usual manner. Noctis finally came with a soft sigh, feeling the warmth of it settle languidly into his bones. He spent a moment luxuriating in the feeling, then rolled over to smoosh his mouth against Keith's in an approximation of a kiss. 

"Ugh, Noct!"

Noctis refused to budge, digging his elbows against Keith until he finally relented and let himself be used as a pillow. 

" _What,_ " Keith snapped, when he found Noctis staring at him.

"You called me Noct."

Keith tched. "Your hearing must be going, _Noctis._ "

"Nah, it's cool, I'll just tell Shiro I've replaced him as number one in your heart."

"Don't you dare—!!!"

Noctis flipped onto his feet and dodged around the room laughing madly, though his pants were still hanging open and Keith was getting much more accurate with his warping these days. Noctis had to fend him off with a few ice spells, and it probably wouldn't be long before Keith figured out spells for _himself,_ Noctis thought fondly. 

Then, he could show Keith some even more _spectacular_ magic tricks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is also a [sort-of prequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838492), wherein Noctis first bangs his way through FFXV. Ironically, it's a lot harder to sleep around in space...?


	5. After-the-Epilogue

Noctis was playing with Keith's sword again, shifting the blade from its knife form to the sword and back again. It still made something warm in the pit of Keith's stomach, a soft squirmy feeling that he wasn't the _only_ one of them that the weapon would respond to, even if Noctis was doing it with his magic and not because he had some fucked up family history.

Still, "if you _like_ it so much, why don't you go and get one of your own?" Keith snipped at him.

Noctis' eyes lit up like Keith had just told him his birthday was being declared a national holiday—which, since he was a prince, might actually be a possibility. Keith wished for the nth time that Noctis was more of a stuck-up jerk, so Keith's hatred of him could be justified, instead of just the ridiculous person that he actually was.

Who was staring at Keith like he held all the answers in the universe.

"Oh, for—" a little voice whispered that sending Noctis to the Blade of Marmora headquarters was a _terrible_ idea for multiple reasons, but Keith squashed that little voice that sounded weirdly like Lance. "If you succeed in the trials of the Blade of Marmora—failure being death or severe injury—you get one of these." Keith snatched his own sword back and held it aloft in his hands.

"Sign me the fuck _up,_ " Noctis crowed, pouncing on Keith and enthusiastically mauling his mouth while Keith scrambled to stash the knife somewhere safe again before either of them got stabbed by the pointy end.

He...suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

-

" _Ugh,_ " Keith griped at Shiro later in the sanctity of his room. "That jerk probably walked in there all," Keith struck a pose with his nose pointed to the sky, one hand on a cocked hip, "Hello! I would like to apply for a magic knife!"

Shiro chuckled, leaning back on the bed. "You _can_ admit to being worried for him, Keith, it's not a show of weakness."

Keith bristled, glaring menacingly at Shiro. "I'm not worried! He's probably having the time of his life getting almost murdered. Did he tell you about the time he and his friends took down a fifty foot _monster_ just because they could?!" 

"Wasn't it to save some cute little birds—"

Shiro shut up at the look on Keith's face, because _Shiro_ was smart and knew what was good for him.

-

It was almost a week before Noctis finally returned in a blaze of glory. He hopped out of his Lion—which disappeared into the ether while not being used, because that was just how things _were_ for Noctis, existing only at his pleasure—and brandished his own glowing blade. It wasn't quite as sleek and elegant as Keith's, wickedly jagged all along one side, but it was _bigger,_ which was a stupid thing to be irritated about, but it _irked_ him.

"Oh, the trials were a cakewalk—" Noctis was telling his adoring audience; Keith's whole face spasmed—"but those Marmora members sure know how to show a guy a _good_ time." This was punctuated with a salacious wink and Keith's blood pressure skyrocketing.

-

Later that night, Keith woke up to Noctis staring at his dick. This...was weirder than usual, but not as weird as it could be. Keith rolled over and prepared to go back to sleep, grumbling when Noctis tucked himself around Keith, but too comfortable to push him away, for the _moment._

"So _you're_ half-Galra, right?" Noctis asked into his hair.

"Mmm..." Keith mumbled, like he was already asleep and not coherent enough for a game of twenty questions. He felt dread curling in him at where exactly Noctis was going with this line of—

"How come your dick doesn't have spines?"

Keith...could not in any universe have anticipated that follow-up. " _What?!_ " He turned over to give Noctis the full impact of his fearsome glare.

Noctis poked at his dick.

"The Galra all have _spines_ on theirs." Noctis' eyes were almost literally shining with stars, gleaming as they were from the light of the port window.

"I don't—what—go the _quiznak_ back to sleep," Keith snarled at him.

He rolled over and yanked the covers back around himself, ignoring all further inquiries from Noctis, who seemed unsatisfied at letting the matter lie, and kept—quiznaking—groping at Keith's dick, like there was a hidden switch on it similar to the one on Keith's knife that would activate—quiznaking _spines_ for some reason.

Keith shoved his face into the pillow and _screamed._

-

Noctis...seemed to be on a campaign to drive Keith to madness, with _sex._ Every time Keith turned around, Noctis was there, giving him that sultry smirk that made Keith's dick twitch in his pants, because it was now a Pavlovian response to get hard at Noctis' ridiculous yet stupidly effective come-ons, because Keith knew that Noctis was just _waiting_ to back them up.

Except recently, he seemed exceedingly obsessed with Keith's _dick._

Noctis would just spend ages _sucking_ at it, tongue tracing over every inch, taking Keith all the way into his throat, not even with a purpose in mind, but like he was going to recreate a perfect representation of it via _sense-memory_ alone.

"Will you— _do something,_ " Keith snarled at him in frustration, after Noctis had spent more than an hour just playing with him.

Noctis hummed in his throat, taking Keith all the way down again and swallowing around his dick like there was nothing he wanted to be doing more.

Keith finally came, but he wasn't _happy_ about it. He shoved Noctis off and kept him at bay with his feet propped against his chest, hands moving to cover his dick so Noctis couldn't jump right back on it when it was already raw and sore from all of Noctis' attentions, the licking and sucking and light grazing of his _teeth,_ like—

"It's not a toy!" Keith shouted at him in consternation when Noctis gave him a sad pout.

"I'm just trying to help you reach your full potential," Noctis told him with a sniff. His voice was hoarse and his lips swollen, and it wasn't hot at all, Keith refused to be taken in by these _lies._

"Get out!" he growled, pointing at the door.

Noctis gave him a chastising look as he slunk out of the room, like _Keith_ was the one being unreasonable.

Keith flopped over on his back in relief. There _was_ such a thing as too much sex, and he'd definitely reached his limit for the day, if not the whole week. His fingers accidentally brushed his cock as he shifted on the bed, and he shivered from his toes to his ears. He was still _so_ sensitive. It only took a few more light touches with the pads of his fingers for him to come _again,_ his whole body seizing from the sensation.

-

Keith was _done._

He couldn't even get _hard_ anymore, but Noctis wasn't letting up. His mouth was still wrapped around Keith's dick like he could coax it into another orgasm, though Keith had already come—how many times? already. He couldn't even remember anymore.

The last one had _hurt,_ completely dry and aching in every corner of his body.

Keith whimpered, trying to get feeling back in his fingers, any part of him, but all his muscles were as jelly, he didn't even have the strength to kick Noctis away.

" _C-can't,_ " Keith pleaded with him, voice completely shot.

Noctis grinned around his cock, sucking hard one last time and making Keith's muscles _burn_ with exertion, before he pulled off with a pop.

Keith's dick was completely soft, laying against his stomach.

"I have defeated the beast!" Noctis cooed at it.

Keith, for once, got his wish and felt darkness overtake him.

-

"Oi, Shiro!" Noctis hailed the other paladin from halfway across the room. Keith twitched and tried not to too-obviously jerk his head up to see what Noctis _wanted_ from him. "Are you coming to slay the beast, later tonight?"

It took _Keith_ two ticks to parse Noctis' meaning, but Shiro seemed to get it right away. He went red, a deer-in-headlights expression on his face.

"Ooooh, did you guys get your hands on some kind of space video game?" Lance interrupted before Shiro could answer or Keith could punch Noctis in the face. "Can I come, I want to pl—"

" _No,_ " Keith snarled at him. "You're _not_ invited."

Lance's face flashed with hurt, but Noctis was quick to swing an arm over his shoulders and steer him away from Keith, telling him—"You've gotta have at least level ten experience before you can even _consider_ slaying the beast, Lance." He started counting them off on his fingers: "Level one is macking, level two is frottage, level three is the art of the bj, level four is deepthroating, level five is rimming—"

Lance went white as a sheet. " _You're not talking about a video game!!!_ "

Noctis shrugged, unphased. "The video game of _life,_ " he explained.

"Your _life_ is a porno," Keith grumbled at him.

Noctis threw him a saucy wink in return. "Pay-per- _view._ "

Lance had run away shrieking.

-

Keith sighed with exasperation when he woke up to Noctis staring at his dick again. "It's not going to grow spines just because you _want_ it to, Noctis."

Noctis stared harder. Keith could almost feel his concentration like a tangible thing.

"Ugh, _whatever,_ " he mumbled and went back to sleep. Just staring was fine. Keith could _deal_ with staring. What he couldn't deal with was being woken up for the fifth night in a row by the orgasm Noctis had wrung out of him, his breaths harsh gasps as his mind tried to piece together what the quiznak was happening, why his whole body _shook_ with pleasure, why Noctis was perched over him with that shit-eating expression of self-satisfied smugness on his face.

Keith would take...staring.

-

It was a few nights later that Keith woke up—alone, but _so_ desperate it was like a fire in his blood. He _needed,_ and he knew exactly where to get it.

Keith yowled and clawed at Noctis' door until it opened, Noctis looking messily sleep-rumpled as he blinked sleepy blue eyes at Keith. "Wha—?"

Keith scratched another deep groove into the metal, his claws _screeching_ across its surface. Noctis seemed slow on the uptake until Keith basically ripped his own pants off, grabbed one of Noctis' hands in his and made him feel his cock, the _spines_ of it rough and needing, shivering at the touch of a warm hand on their surface.

Noctis snapped instantly awake, smile spreading slowly across his face. "Oh, _yes._ "

-

The next few hours passed by in a frenzy. Keith didn't remember much of it except for bits where Noctis rode him until his thighs trembled with it, his hands shaking where they were braced against Keith's chest, the most luscious moans escaping his mouth as Keith rolled his hips and his dick pressed deeper into Noctis, his _spines_ catching whenever Noctis tried to push himself up and Keith had to help him, digging his claws into Noctis' hips as he forced him off and then tugged him back down again on a _scream._

Keith purred, warm with contentedness. Wasn't this what Noctis had _wanted,_ after all?

He remembered Noctis pulling on his _tail,_ how Keith had pushed back into him, but Noctis had no spines on _his_ dick, and it wasn't enough, human softness, until Noctis had pressed fingers in alongside his cock, and Keith had come and come and come.

Noctis sucking greedily at the tips of his ears, making Keith's toes curl; Noctis _biting_ him on the tender flesh of his throat and Keith _returning_ that bite; Noctis making a mess of himself as Keith licked smears of blood away with hard laps of his newly rough tongue, and then holding Noctis' hips firmly against the mattress as Keith purred and licked him clean of his own excesses, not stopping there but then licking _into_ him as Noctis was the one squirming this time, guttural _animalistic_ sounds issuing from his throat as Keith took him to pieces.

By the time they staggered out of the room again the next morning, they were both covered in various bruises, claw-marks, and _sex injuries,_ such as when Keith had gotten over-eager and _slammed_ Noctis against the wall, and Noctis now had a darkly purpling bruise on his cheek to show for it. Noctis' _neck_ looked like a rabid beast had attacked it, and Keith wasn't sure his own looked much better, though Noctis had only had human teeth to maul him with.

Thankfully, whatever had caused his transformation the prior evening had subsided with the dawn, and Keith hadn't woken _up_ with any of his furry—or _spiney_ appendages.

"Maybe you're a were-Galra," Noctis suggested. He scooped food goo into his mouth hungrily, like he hadn't eaten in months.

Keith was already on his fifth bowl, and he was only _beginning_ to feel satisfied.

"That's a _stupid_ theory," he told Noctis, but secretly also wondered the same. _Could_ that be a thing? He thought about asking Pidge to run some tests, but then decided it wasn't worth the hassle...or the embarrassment of having to explain to her that Noctis had _wished_ so hard for Keith to have spines on his dick that he'd somehow made it a reality. It might've been a freak one-time occurrence even, Keith was probably over-thinking it.

-

("Holy _quiznak!_ " Lance shouted when he walked through the door. "Did the two of you get attacked by space- _wolves_ or something?"

Noctis smirked. "Nah, just Keith's dick—"

Lance's scream echoed throughout the castleship, and warmed an unused corner of Keith's heart towards his otherworldly body double.)

-

It...wasn't a freak one-time occurrence, but seemed to happen once every three weeks, give or take; starting always at night, an _itch_ that needed to be scratched. Keith pounded Noctis into the mattress until he couldn't hold himself up anymore, whining as Keith pressed into him relentlessly, making him shake apart. It was—a nice change from _Noctis_ always being the one to drive Keith to insanity. Keith appreciated making the _prince_ wordless with wanton over-indulgence.

He'd thought nothing more of it until _Kolivan_ sniffed at him one day, before a mission. "Are you...in heat?"

"What?" Keith had asked, feeling his blood run cold.

"You look fine, but you smell—" Kolivan's nose twitched.

"It's nothing," Keith assured him quickly. He was going to _kill_ Noctis, he was going to burn him to ash and spread his ashes over all the hundred galaxies, so even his _memories_ would be lost to the outer reaches of space. 

"Perhaps some quirk of your human biology that scents similarly to a Galran heat?" Kolivan wondered. He let the matter drop, since Keith wasn't showing any signs of—madly ravishing any member of the team, he assumed, since that about summed up what he did with _Noctis_ when he was in the throes of...what they'd been calling his 'were-Galra' episodes.

That night, Keith was _extra_ rough with Noctis, not letting him come even when Keith had had _his_ once, twice, three times.

Keith kept him on the edge until Noctis had lost the voice for _begging,_ claws squeezed tightly around his cock as Noctis whimpered, his thighs wet with the evidence of _Keith's_ pleasure. Keith bit down hard on the nape of Noctis' neck and finally let go, feeling the tight heat of Noctis clenching around him as he was finally allowed his release.

It satisfied a bone-deep ache in him that Keith had never realized he had until it was gone.

-

"Congratulations!" Kolivan greeted them the next morning at breakfast; he'd stayed the night on the castleship so they could all debrief after the mission.

Keith and Noctis gave him identical uncomprehending looks.

"You are mated, are you not?"

Keith... _seriously considered_ the pros and cons of throwing himself out of an airlock.

"Should I give you a ring?" Noctis wondered aloud. "Not this one though," Noctis covered his hand—"it'd kill you."

-

Keith hadn't quite realized the ramifications of being _mated_ to Noctis until he found himself standing at Noctis' shoulder and _growling_ at the strangers that Noctis had been flirting with, the quiznaking jerk. 

They quickly paled and made themselves scarce, and Noctis turned to him—not with a moue of disappointment, as Keith might've expected—but with a brilliant beaming smile.

"You _do_ love me, Keith!"

Keith bristled, hackles rising. "I do _not,_ " he hollered, uncaring of whoever might be looking in their direction. "Go and whore yourself out to the whole Galran fleet for all I care!!!" He began to stalk away, _raging_ with anger, then whipped back around and leveled a murderous glare at the person he most _hated_ in the whole entire galaxy. "Except _don't._ Because they're the enemy."

"Okay," Noctis agreed, the corners of his smile soft. "Because they're the enemy."


	6. Missing Scene: Trial of the Blade

Kolivan had observed many undertake the Trial of Marmora, from those whom had been born within the Order to those disillusioned with the cruelty of Zarkon's rule, how he crushed whole civilizations under his heel without a thought or care for those he deemed _weak._ Kolivan had seen those deemed to be strong fall before their demons in the Trial, yet also those unassuming few _thrive_ when put to the test, but he had never seen one quite like the paladin who had come before them today.

It had been a surprise when a Lion of Voltron had arrived at their door. Even moreso when it had been one unknown to him.

"Do you bring news that could not be transmitted?" Kolivan inquired of the youth. 

The paladin shook his head. "No, uh." He appeared hesitant, unsure now that he had reached his destination, but his expression firmed before he spoke again. "Keith said if I passed the Trial, I'd win—a sword, like his."

Kolivan was startled, though it was hidden behind his mask. There were murmurings from behind him. 

"The Trial is not to be undertaken lightly, Paladin. If your heart is not strong, then it will break."

The paladin stood taller at his words, as if they resonated within him. "I _won't_ break."

-

The human—Noctis—fought as few that Kolivan had encountered before, even within the Order. Keith had fought well, but he fought with the naïveté of a child; certain of his own power. This one fought with the awareness that his life depended on each slash of his blade, that a single misstep would spell his own doom. He wasted no movements and let no opportunities pass him by. 

It was impressive, and Kolivan wondered what kind of experience had honed one so young into such a fighter.

-

Noctis completed the trials faster than any Galra had ever done so, and without the use of his own _other_ abilities, it appeared. As soon as Kolivan had announced that there were no more doors to be opened, about to declare the effort a failure—Noctis had defeated all that stood before him, but without awakening his blade—the paladin flipped the knife into the air and set it aglow in a shining blaze of light, the blade that dropped into his hand a cruel _deadly_ weapon, jagged all along one edge.

" _Nice,_ " Noctis had grinned, then added it to an entire _arsenal_ of glowing weapons that circled around him like phantoms. 

Noctis, even, seemed to be invigorated by the battles he had undergone, rejuvenated in the course of the fighting so that he was more energetic after completing his Trial than before them.

He appeared curious about the inner workings of their base, following along genteelly as he was shown to a resting area where he could wash himself off and then partake of the evening meal with them as he had earned the right, but Noctis kept sliding glances at individual members of the Order like he was more curious of what lay beneath their masks.

"Is there a topic you would open for discussion?" Kolivan asked their newest member as they sat for their meal.

Noctis hesitated, then blew out a breath. It seemed that fighting was a natural course for him, but casual conversation a battlefield less easily navigated. He began stiffly, "I apologize if I offend—"

"Do not declare the battle lost before you have even drawn your blade," Kolivan told the young warrior.

"Right," Noctis agreed with a nod of his head. "I was just wondering if—you seem a lot like the Kingsglaive? A military faction back home. I know _they_ were boning like bunnies between all their missions." Noctis made a gesture that Kolivan couldn't identify, but his next words provided more clarity. " 'We fight hard, we _fuck_ hard,' that was the unofficial motto, I'm pretty sure."

"Ah," one of the junior members seated across from them nodded in understanding. He murmured to his companion, and a whisper went around the table.

Kolivan vanished his own mask to eye the paladin—and the newest initiate into their Order—with undeniable meaning. "Are you certain you would undertake _this_ trial also, Paladin? Human bodies are not equipped for such...stimulation."

Noctis jumped to his feet as if he couldn't undertake it fast _enough._

Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but the Paladin of Light exceeded all expectations in his second...less _official_ initiation, possibly even more than he had the first. Kolivan was certain there were members of their number that would be immediately volunteering to liaise with the Castle of Lions when the need arose. It was discovered that Noctis'...other abilities were not limited to battle and weaponry, but had _particular_ applications in the gentler arts.


	7. Obligatory Daemon!Noctis Interlude

**I.**

It was all his _fault._

Shiro had trusted him to be the leader, the Black Lion— _Artemis,_ because Noct had some weird obsession with naming anything that expressed even the vaguest semblance of sentience; he'd called the food processor _Iggy,_ for some unfathomable reason—had trusted him to be its pilot, and Keith had _failed them both._

He'd wanted to charge directly in, give no quarter, because he'd been hurting, and angry, and Shiro hadn't been there to hold him back.

Noct _had,_ but Keith hadn't listened, he never listened to Noct, not even when he _did_ know best, when he had experience on his side. Keith hadn't been thinking about that, hadn't been thinking about _anything_ but how the enemy was right there in front of him, the enemy that had _lost him Shiro,_ and they'd had a screaming fight right there in the middle of battle, and then Keith had lost Noctis too.

He'd been _wrong,_ and Noct had paid the price for it, and Keith was _so_ sorry. 

They'd had to drag him back to the castleship instead of running straight into the tractor beam that'd pulled Noct's Lion in, even though his own Lion had been on its last reserves, damaged by the fighers that _should_ have been nothing, but had caught them unawares when Keith had lost sight of the true goal to have a screaming match with Noct. Allura had _punched_ him, when they'd gotten out of their Lions. "You can't only think of _yourself,_ Keith. You have to think of the whole _team,_ even when—" Allura's voice choked up—"even when it _hurts._ " She'd stormed off before he'd had a chance to apologize, because she'd been _right._

And now here they were, regrouped and battle-ready, tracking Noct's signal to a Galran warship that looked...eerily deserted.

"Hey, uh, is anyone else intimidated?" Hunk asked, carefully skirting what looked like a few arms and legs, half- _eaten,_ detached from the torso. "Because I'm intimidated."

Keith grit his teeth. " _We push forward._ "

-

Pidge was carefully turning over what was left of a corpse and examining the _teeth-marks_ on it, the very _not_ -clean cuts that'd separated it from most of its limbs. "A _Galran_ didn't do this."

Lance fidgeted nervously. "You think something non-Galran took out this whole ship? This isn't _good,_ Keith." He looked close to panicking, which was understandable; there'd been more and more bodies the further they'd gotten into the ship, each of them mutilated almost beyond recognition and oozing blue-purple blood onto the floor, no signs of anything still _living._ "If it did this to all these Galra, what chance do _we_ have?"

Keith had to think about the team, but Noct was a part of the team _too,_ and he couldn't abandon him again.

"We check it out," Keith said. He held up a hand. " _Carefully._ If it's too much, we beat a hasty retreat."

"Alright," Pidge agreed. She sent the bot she'd re-purposed ahead of them so it could scout out the way ahead, and also give them a few seconds warning if something suddenly appeared out of the shadows to attack it.

The rest of the _team_ gave their assents in low murmurs, sticking closer than perhaps they would have been if the whole thing weren't so fucking _creepy._

-

They'd finally reached the bridge of the ship, and the sight that greeted them as they were stood staring in shock in the doorway was something straight out of a horror movie. It was some kind of monster, grand and hulking, crouched low over the body of a Galran and _eating_ it, digging straight into its chest and gulping down the innards.

Lance had his bayard transformed and pointed at the thing immediately, but Keith shoved it back down.

"That's _Noct,_ " he declared, with absolute certainty.

"What?" Pidge asked. "How do you know?" She was sat on the ground typing into the portable computer she'd unfolded from who knew where. "It's not reading like Noct at all."

Keith grit his teeth. "I _know._ "

He took a slow step forward, then another. Noct was still eating, and hadn't appeared to notice him yet. 

" _Keith,_ " Allura hissed at him. "What happened to being _careful?_ "

"You guys stay there," Keith told them without turning his head to look back. "If he attacks me, _run._ " 

Keith kept his hands up, open and non-threatening. He didn't try to mask his steps, but made sure they were audible, that Noct could see and hear him approaching. When he was a few meters away, Noct paused in his meal to look up. 

His eyes were _golden,_ glowing faintly in the darkness, most of the lights gone out—because Noct had destroyed the control rooms.

"Hey," Keith said, keeping his voice soft and even. "Remember me? Keith." He grimaced. "Your...mate."

Noct didn't seem to recognize him, growling threateningly and curling a claw over the corpse like he thought Keith was going to try and steal his food. Keith remembered what Noct had said—"You guys don't have fishing in space, so sex, food, and sleep are the only joys left to me."

It'd been a joke, but had it really? Keith made a decision, though it might have been a stupid one.

He very carefully, keeping his eyes on Noct the whole time, set his bayard down on the floor. Next went his helmet, Noct watching his every motion with keen attentiveness, unmoving but still rumbling that low threat in his throat, warning Keith away. Keith couldn't tell if it was a good sign that Noct hadn't _attacked_ him yet, or if Noct was just waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

" _Please,_ Noct," Keith begged him. He moved the last few steps forward. " _Remember me._ "

Noct raised his snout up—it was wet with Keith didn't want to think about what—and pushed it against Keith's neck, making him tense all over, but it wasn't followed by sharp teeth ripping his throat out, it was just...nuzzling gently at him, like Noct was _smelling_ him. 

He sat back suddenly with a trilling chirrup at Keith.

"Noct?" Keith asked. 

Noct bunted him in the chest, sending him sprawling out on his ass.

He was—was he _laughing?_ tongue lolling out as he padded over and then started licking Keith's face.

"Ugh, you're still a quiznaking _asshole,_ " Keith grumbled at him. "And your breath _stinks._ " He tried to push Noct's head away, but Noct ignored him, purring as he nosed at Keith's throat again, getting—blood, and guts, and other grotesque things Keith didn't want anywhere _near_ him—all over him. 

Keith sighed. It _was_ Noct, through and through.

-

"Okay," Keith muttered. "C'mon, we need to get you out of here." 

Noct tilted his head at Keith, looking between him then back at the body he hadn't finished eating like he was deciding which one had first priority. 

"Really?" Keith asked him. "You haven't eaten enough already? Come _on._ "

Noct whined, pawing at the ground and leaving long scratches on the metal with his claws.

Keith dragged a hand over his face. "Patience yields focus," he repeated to himself. "Patience—hey!" He gagged at the half-chewed hunk of flesh that'd been dropped in his lap, like Noct was trying to bribe him into staying by sharing his meal. " _So_ gross," Keith shuddered. He pushed the—whatever it was, away from himself, wincing at the wet splatting sound it made it on the floor.

"Noct?" he asked as he cautiously got up again. 

Keith put his hands on Noct's face, feeling the strange scaly texture of it. He scratched at an eye ridge, smiling a little when that made Noct sigh in pleasure, going lax in his grip.

"Come _on,_ Noct," Keith whispered to him. As disgusting as it was, Keith leaned his forehead against Noct's, trying to make a _connection_ with him.

"I know you're in there," he told Noct, stupid unnatural Noct who never did anything the _normal_ way, like anyone else. Why had he turned into a _monster?_ Shiro had been imprisoned by the Galrans for over a year, and he'd only returned with a cool robot arm. "Come back to me, please?" Keith pleaded with him, plaintive, stroking his fingers over Noct's cheek.

He felt it suddenly, like a jolt of electricity through his hand, running from himself to Noct, connecting them in a circuit—he looked into Noct's eyes, and he _saw:_

(Noct was strapped to some kind of torture device, arms and legs bound, glaring at whoever was questioning him. "You think I don't know pain? _I know pain._ " The expression on his face had been almost feral. "If you want to burn the heart out of me, _you're too late._ "

Noct screamed when the druid magic hit him, his skin discolouring where it touched him, _and then he started laughing._

It wasn't a _human_ laugh, layered and echoing with hollow tones, _vicious,_ and it hadn't been a human _face_ that had looked up when Noct _stopped_ laughing, the eyes golden and gleaming with predatory intent, the sclera around them _black._

He snapped the restraints like they were nothing, hands twisting into _claws,_ a long sinuous tail that arced up and slashed the the throats of the nearest Galra open.

Noct was laughing again, but there was _nothing_ human about it.

He licked his teeth and smiled. " _Run,_ little mousies.")

-

Keith fell back gasping. "What the _quiznak,_ Noct."

"Keith?" Noct asked him, blinking mostly _human_ eyes at him—they were still slitted and touched with gold—in a human face. He was, of course, naked.

Keith grunted as Noct leaned his whole weight against him.

"M'tired," Noct mumbled.

"Yeah, me too," Keith realized suddenly. What _had_ that been? He felt drained more than if he'd been training for hours, even when he was using Noct's magic, trying to get it to work as naturally for him as it did for Noct because they were the same, weren't they? Only separated by the circumstances of which reality they'd been born to.

Noct was snoring gently against his cheek, and Keith _felt_ his legs give out from under him like it was in slow motion, falling back on the ground, and then darkness had overtaken him.

  
  
**II.**

Noct's recovery wasn't immediate, though he _was_ human again when Keith woke up. 

Sometimes his eyes went slitted for a moment, Noct staring too long at someone like he was thinking of _eating_ them—Lance had frozen with a spoonful of food goo half-raised to his mouth, as if afraid moving would spur Noct into action, into tearing out his _throat_ like they'd seen so much evidence of on the Galran ship—but Noct shook his head again and it was gone.

"What _happened_ in there?" Keith asked him when they were alone in his room, curled up together.

Noct seemed loathe to leave his side for a single moment since they'd gotten back, huddled against Keith even when they were eating, or hovering on the sidelines when Keith was training, jumping in when he thought the dummy had gotten _too close,_ slashing it to pieces with quiznaking _claws._ Keith had felt his heart in his throat the first time it'd happened, wondering if Noct was having a relapse. But with the danger seemingly passed, Noct settled back down again as well. He pressed his face against Keith's throat, like he had when he'd been a monster, like smelling Keith was _home_ to him no matter what form he was in.

" _Scourge,_ " Noct whispered, and left it at that.

-

It was almost two weeks later when Noct suddenly burst out laughing at one of Lance's stupid jokes and everyone knew he was back to normal, if he could appreciate the low-brow humour that was the Lance Special.

"Oh, good," Lance sighed in relief. "I thought Keith was going to have to get you a leash and give you walkies everyday." He spooned more of Hunk's latest culinary creation onto his plate.

Noct looked at Keith, eyes smoldering. "Maybe you _should_ get me a leash."

Lance choked on his food and had to be smacked repeatedly on the back by Hunk before he'd coughed it up again. " _Not cool,_ you guys," he gasped out. "We _banned_ sex talk at the table."

" _You_ banned sex talk at the table," Pidge amended. "There wasn't a vote or anything."

Noct laughed, sharing a grin with Pidge across the table. He was falling back into old grooves with the rest of them, relearning old pathways.

Keith tried not to think about the echoing sound of Noct's _other_ laugh that he still heard in his dreams sometimes, Noct's cut-off scream as he'd twisted into something _inhuman,_ hunted down and eaten an entire Galran battleship.

-

"Are you _afraid_ of me, Keith?" Noct asked him that night, pinning Keith's arms over his head against the bed. He nipped at Keith's neck, but his teeth were blunt, only human.

" _No,_ " Keith sneered at him.

" _Were_ you afraid of me?"

Keith thought back to the monster Noct had been, hulking and dangerous, the evidence of it strewn across miles and miles of hallway, but he hadn't been, not really. He'd _known_ it was Noct, and he'd known Noct wouldn't hurt him.

"No," he answered.

" _Good,_ " Noct whispered, then nipped at Keith's lip. He drew blood this time, eyes going slitted at the sight, but he only sucked it away with a moan, kissed Keith with teeth that were sharper than normal, but it was still _Noct._

  
  
**III.**

Keith panted against the sheets, whining. His skin felt like it was burning up, too _hot,_ as it always was when it got like this, this needy desperation in him to touch and _be_ touched, and only Noct could make it go away.

He screamed when Noct set his teeth against the back of his neck and _bit._

He felt it like a _brand,_ scouring him to the soul. He felt like he'd never be free of Noct, felt him like a presence he could sense at the edges of his _mind,_ bright and shining, but with a roiling darkness beneath.

Noct was still gnawing at the bite-mark when Keith came back to himself, little shivers in his fingers and toes, making sure it would scar.

"You're a quiznaking _heathen,_ " Keith snarled at him. 

Noct flipped him over again, staring down at him with slitted golden eyes, the veins around them dark and spreading, though the rest of his face was still mostly human, save for the long sharp canines that peeked out of his mouth.

"I'm _your_ quiznaking heathen," Noct rumbled, the tone of his voice low and growling. 

Some unnameable emotion twisted warmly inside Keith, hearing Noct use a phrase that wasn't native to _his_ world, like it was a promise to stay. Noct's tail curled around his ankle, moving slowly up his leg—

"Nope, don't even _think_ about it," Keith glowered, but Noct only snickered at him, butting his head playfully against Keith's chest, like Keith didn't _know_ what he was thinking. "I said _no,_ Noct, you _asshole,_ " as the very tip of the tail slid inside him, and Keith couldn't help spreading his legs for it _anyways,_ arching into it and moaning when Noct pressed close to kiss him again, purring soothingly against him while he eased more and more of his quiznaking _tail_ into him, the hard segmented ridges making Keith gasp with the pressure and sensation of them, because Noct had to do _this_ differently from everyone else _too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone that might be interested, Noct named the Green Lion _Athena_ , the Blue Lion _Hermes_ , and the Yellow Lion _Apollo._


End file.
